A fundamental formula for leadership efficiency: weighting the contribution of ‘marketing paideia’

Abstract

Building businesses leaders is the pathway to increase competitiveness in a micro‐ and macro‐economic level. That's why marketing (a word of ancient Greek origin) and leadership are two linked concepts. So, it seems that there is a highest research priority on how higher levels of marketing productivity can be achieved. A ‘good’ leadership (productive leadership efforts) seems to be expressed from the known formula of management science. A ratio between effectiveness (degree of achieving goals) to efficiency (degree of exploitation of entered information). In such frames, the in‐depth examination of Ancient Sparta's case during the period of king Agesilaos will be proven valuable. Agesilaos, after a long decline period had succeeded to lead Sparta in leadership levels for more than 40 years. The case becomes more interesting if we consider that Sparta's external environment (the other Greek states‐poleis: Athens, Theba, Corinth, etc.) was highly competitive, as the global economic environment nowadays. The aim of the study is to examine if there is a potent relation among leaders' educational background (paideia), their personality traits, and their ability to formulate winning grand strategies for leadership. But it seems that the most important factor is not related to the leader's personality characteristics but the characteristics of the ‘mathematically’ reengineered ‘Spartan system’—a system designed by Lycurgus, probably the first successful systemic reform process. In continuous, we have conducted an in‐depth literature review on the modern empirical evidence from academic journals in marketing, in order to formulate safe scientific arguments and the fundamental leadership efficiency formula. We strongly believe that this conceptual analysis will provide not only valuable findings, but also significantly research implications to the academic community of marketing.